I still can't believe we won!

Hi Everyone!
I got some very cute comments about my "We Won" blog. Comments included "great to hear you won, but what the heck happened at the competition?" So here is the follow-up blog with more details.

The People's Choice Belly Dance Competition is all about dancers choosing their favorite dancers out of their peers. It always feels like such a big compliment when you win a competition like this, because it says that your peers admire what you have created. There are 3 major categories in the competition: solos, duets, and troupes. Each category is awarded 1st through 4th place awards by the audience voters.

In the troupe division, there were only 4 troupes that were competing. The show put us off kilter a bit though. Several performers in early categories didn't show up, so the show was running really early. (A belly dance show running early?! Unheard of!!!!) I had a bunch of friends and family who were coming to see us at 2:45pm, and I was planning on arriving at 2 so I had time to relax and watch some dancing before I went on. At 2, just as I was pulling up to the theater, I got a call from one of my fellow dancers. “Where are you?” she asked breathlessly. “They’re running early, so were going on in 15 minutes!” OMG! Now my adrenalin was rushing through me and when I got inside we all tried to figure out how we were going to compensate for the dancers that weren’t going to be there on time.

At 2:10pm Dave showed up with his Dad and my parents and a friend. Thank goodness! And at 2:15 we went on. We were only missing one dancer, but she showed up as we were dancing the first dance, and jumped in on the second dance. Woohooo!!!! We all got to dance most of the set! And what a set it was. We had flying double veils, scimitars, Tai Chi fighting swords, and of course, hip shimmies to knock you off your seat. It was an incredible display of group innovation because all of us chipped in to create the pieces. We were so excited to perform the set, and the whole place went still when we started. We got everyone’s undivided attention. It felt magical.

When I left the stage, it felt like we had done really well. But, it turned out that after the performance, several dancers were really upset. I guess things hadn’t gone as well for everyone as I thought.

But we all had good attitudes. We came. We danced. We got to show the world what we could create as a team. We debuted Tai Chi fighting sword belly dancing to the world!!!! That was cool! Now we could enjoy the rest of the show and hope to win next year. We all changed back into street clothes since we figured we weren’t going to have to look gorgeous for the awards part of the show. People only really look at the 1st and 2nd place winners usually.

So, when they started announcing troupe awards we were all huddled together and expected to be the first to walk up to the stage. But they called another troupes name. Hmmmmm……okay, 3rd place is better than we thought. Great! But then for 3rd place they called another troupe. Now we were all a bit confused. We took 2nd place? Really? But then they called yet another troupe name. HUH????!!! What?!!!! There must be a mistake. We all stood still and quiet until they finally called our troupe name, as if we weren’t really sure what was going to happen. And then when they said it, we screamed like a bunch of teenagers. We screamed and stood still. It took us a minute to realize we needed to move towards the stage. We all walked looking completely stunned. It was the most incredible experience! We really had no idea we even had a chance to win. What an absolutely delightful surprise!!!! I am still in complete disbelief that it happened, but e-mails keep flying around saying “We won! We won! We won!” So it must have happened. Yippeee! I wanna do that again!

I know you want to see pictures, but none of the pictures that Dave took came out. If I get any good ones from anyone else, I’ll post them as soon as I get them. Thanks everyone for all your congratulations e-mails. I feel like a superstar!!!!